Tuesday, December 24, 2013

A Baby Boomer's Christmas Eve Memories

It's Christmas Eve and we are spending it alone. That's life, as my sister would say.When you get old and your children have their own lives, this happens.Growing up, Christmas Eve was always special. My family opened presents on Christmas Eve, Santa came the next day and we spent Christmas Day either at my grandparents house or they came to ours for the big Christmas feast. I never realized we did it this way, because it's the way they do it in Scandinavia, Germany and other European countries. Since my mother was Swedish, it makes sense.So when I had my own family, I followed that same plan. When you start on Christmas Eve, it drags the holiday out in a delightful way. Why crowd Christmas day with all of the fun?But now our children have their own families and will have their own traditions, and we are navigating that time of our lives when we need to get used to that.But we have our happy memories.

My first Christmas.

My 5th Christmas.(Animal fur didn't seem to be an issue in the 50's)

My 7th Christmas and Echo the Dog's first.

(Motorcycle jackets were big for 12 year old boys, I guess. I am surprised my mother let him wear it in the picture)

Childhood memories include the tree falling down every year, sleeping with my brother as we awaited the arrival of Santa (not sure how that hastened his arrival), homemade Parker House rolls, snow falling on Christmas Eve, worrying Santa would leave a lump of coal in my stocking (a threat my mother used) and my Mother's delicious pies.

Somewhere across the world in Turkey my Hubby-to-be was celebrating Christmas too.

My son's first Christmas.

My son's second Christmas. (The tree was in the playpen for its own protection).

First Christmas with Hubby.

First Christmas for our daughter

﻿

The carol-playing bell-ringing Santa from Grammy that played carols and rang his bell over and over and over and over...fun gift for the son, not so much for the parents. He disappeared mysteriously.

All the grandchildren received Blaze the Horse from Granddaddy.

As they grew, so many more memories:

Visit from Aunt Posy (my sister) with Twinkle the cat.

Traditional Christmas Eve dinner: Pizza

Traditional Christmas Eve activities:

Singing Christmas carols in the car while riding around looking at Christmas lights and the kids whining about when it would be over so we could open presents

Presents - 10 each and we all had to watch as each one was opened so it would go on and on

Reading about the birth of baby Jesus, followed by "Twas the Night Before Christmas." Kids yawning.

Bedtime for the kids - never easy

Party time for the parents, thus making putting up basketball hoops and putting bicycles together all the harder.

Christmas Eve 2012

We are all older now and on different paths.

But, hopefully, our happy memories hold us close.

Now us old folks are making some new happy memories!

Mildred

Frederic

Tarquin

Happy Holidays Everyone.

See you Friday!

Thanks for reading!

If you enjoyed this post, feel free to share it and/or email it to your friends

About Me

A mostly humorous blog from a retired Baby Boomer librarian, a regular gal who fearlessly reviews movies and books for regular folks but also will occasionally rant about food, fashion, pop culture and whatever strikes her fancy at any given time. It's Life in Review from the perspective of a Woman of a Certain Age!
Find new movie and book reviews every Friday and the occasional rant about life and other topics on the occasional Tuesday. Like me at http://www.facebook.com/rosythereviewer/